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Rudy :
You the one that called?
Don : Yeah. Hi there. I'm Don.
Rudy : Climb on over. Ever been out here before?
Don : Nope. It's beautiful.
Rudy : You ever been on a ranch before?
Don : Yeah, when I was a kid, at camp. How, uh- how
many acres do you have, Rudy?
Rudy : Well, you wouldn't want to have to walk your
way outta here. That's for sure. Come on up and meet
my new neighbors.
Don : Aw. No. Aw, geez. When did all this happen?
Rudy : Last couple of years. Local rancher lost
control of the land. Banks took it and sold it to
real estate speculators.
Don : What the hell happened over there?
Rudy : Meth freaks.
Don : Out here?
Rudy : They find a quiet little place, start cookin'-
till somethin' blows up
or burns down.
Don : Wow.
Rudy : Past year and a half, I've had two bodies
dumped on my land.
Don : Dead bodies?
Rudy : One of'em was rolled up in this nice-lookin'
carpet. Scared the shit
out of my foreman. They dump dead
dogs and cats and all other sorts of garbage on my
land. Seems like I spend half my time just defendin'
the place. I gotta go to court next week to fight
off some private corporation from Denver wants to
build a toll road
across my land. Eminent domain,
my ass. They got
another word for it-robbery. You wanna open that up
for me?
Don : You should get a clicker. Hey, Rudy. You know
anybody over at Uni-Globe Meat Packing?
Rudy : Sure.
Don : What do you think of'em?
Rudy : I think they're a fine bunch.
Don : Really?
Rudy : They'll slit your throat for a nickel. Nothin'
personal. They just want the extra nickel.
Don : Well, who do you know over there?
Rudy : I know all of'em. I sold cattle to 'em for
years.
Don : Oh.
Rudy : More important, I know their type. They are
the meanest, toughest sons of bitches, and they're
proud of it. But that's nothin' new. My granddad
went up against the meat packers in 1919. Testified
in Congress about their price-fixing. And after
that, none of them would buy his cattle. U.M.P. And
all the rest tried to
run him out of the business.
Don : Okay, but that was a long time ago.
Rudy : Yeah. And the big packers are even worse
today. They're even bigger today.
Don : Really?
Rudy : And meaner. Hell, old Dwight D. Eisenhower
would've shut 'em down. He wouldn't have
stood for their
crap.
Don : Do you think they would knowingly sell us
contaminated meat?
Rudy : Oh, come on. Workers are gettin' their arms
cut off over there. You don't know who you're dealin'
with.
Don : No. No, I don't. Please, help me. I- I was at
the plant. It seemed clean to me.
Rudy : They show you the kill floor?
Don : I don't know. I saw a lot of things.
Rudy : You'd remember. You see any cattle gettin'
their heads cut off? Were you walkin' ankle-deep in
blood?
Don : No.
Rudy : So they didn't show you a damn thing. |
